Jim Giles - MIT Technology Review http://www.technologyreview.com/stream/23716/?sort=recent
enThe Web's Crystal Ball Gets an Upgradehttp://www.technologyreview.com/news/426105/the-webs-crystal-ball-gets-an-upgrade/
<p>Bitly’s shortened links can forecast the next trend online—a partnership with Verisign is about to boost that predictive power.</p><p>Thousands of people every day use the link-shortening service <a target="_blank" href="http://bitly.com/">Bitly</a> to tame unwieldy Web links to share on Twitter and other social media sites. Few realize that they’re simultaneously helping the New York company peer into the Web’s future. Bitly analyzes the pages pointed to by the 80 million short links it generates every day to predict changes in the public’s attitude toward people and companies. Now Bitly is set to get access to a slew of new data that could make its Web crystal ball even better at forecasting the future.<br /><br /> Bitly has reached a data-sharing agreement with <a target="_blank" href="http://www.verisigninc.com">Verisign</a>, based in Dulles, Virginia. Verisign acts as a kind of telephone directory for the Internet. Any address typed into a browser is sent to servers at Verisign or one of a handful of other organizations, which help turn that URL into a numerical address that a computer can use to find the Web page it needs.</p>Mon, 14 Nov 2011 05:00:00 +0000http://www.technologyreview.com/news/426105/the-webs-crystal-ball-gets-an-upgrade/Can an Algorithm Spot the Next Google?http://www.technologyreview.com/news/423648/can-an-algorithm-spot-the-next-google/
<p>A startup analyzes tweets, patents, and lots of other data in the hopes of identifying the next big thing.</p><p>By definition, “disruptive” technologies are those that take the world by surprise. Now a startup called Quid claims that its software can make good guesses about what the next big thing will be. It does this by analyzing a store of data on existing companies, ideas, and research.</p>Thu, 14 Apr 2011 04:00:00 +0000http://www.technologyreview.com/news/423648/can-an-algorithm-spot-the-next-google/